The Botany of Desire

Every schoolchild learns about the mutually beneficial dance of honeybees and flowers: The bee collects nectar and pollen to make honey and, in the process, spreads the flowers' genes far and wide. In The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan ingeniously demonstrates how people and domesticated plants have formed a similarly reciprocal relationship.

Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us

Every year, the average American eats 33 pounds of cheese (triple what we ate in 1970) and 70 pounds of sugar (about 22 teaspoons a day). We ingest 8,500 milligrams of salt a day, double the recommended amount, and almost none of that comes from the shakers on our table. It comes from processed food. It’s no wonder, then, that one in three adults, and one in five kids, is clinically obese.

In Defense of Food

"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." These simple words go to the heart of Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food. Humans used to know how to eat well, Pollan argues. But the balanced dietary lessons that were once passed down through generations have been confused, complicated, and distorted by food industry marketers, nutritional scientists, and journalists-all of whom have much to gain from our dietary confusion.

Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time

Redefining our traditional understanding of the New Deal, Fear Itself finally examines this pivotal American era through a sweeping international lens that juxtaposes a struggling democracy with enticing ideologies like Fascism and Communism. Ira Katznelson, "a towering figure in the study of American and European history" (Cornel West), boldly asserts that, during the 1930s and 1940s, American democracy was rescued yet distorted by a unified band of southern lawmakers who safeguarded racial segregation as they built a new national state to manage capitalism and assert global power.

Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety

Famed investigative journalist Eric Schlosser digs deep to uncover secrets about the management of America's nuclear arsenal. A groundbreaking account of accidents, near misses, extraordinary heroism, and technological breakthroughs, Command and Control explores the dilemma that has existed since the dawn of the nuclear age: How do you deploy weapons of mass destruction without being destroyed by them? That question has never been resolved - and Schlosser reveals how the combination of human fallibility and technological complexity still poses a grave risk to mankind.

No One Would Listen: A True Financial Thriller

No One Would Listen is the exclusive story of the Harry Markopolos-lead investigation into Bernie Madoff and his $65 billion Ponzi scheme. While a lot has been written about Madoff's scam, few actually know how Markopolos and his team - affectionately called "the Fox Hounds" by Markopolos himself - uncovered what Madoff was doing years before this financial disaster reached its pinnacle. Unfortunately, no one listened, until the damage of the world's largest financial fraud ever was irreversible.

Lesser Beasts: A Snout-to-Tail History of the Humble Pig

As historian Mark Essig reveals in Lesser Beasts, swine have such a bad reputation for precisely the same reasons they are so valuable as a source of food: they are intelligent, self-sufficient, and omnivorous. What's more, he argues, we ignore our historic partnership with these astonishing animals at our peril.

Food: A Cultural Culinary History

Eating is an indispensable human activity. As a result, whether we realize it or not, the drive to obtain food has been a major catalyst across all of history, from prehistoric times to the present. Epicure Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin said it best: "Gastronomy governs the whole life of man."

The Few: The American "Knights of the Air" Who Risked Everything to Fight in the Battle of Britain

World War II had been raging for nearly a year. Hitler was now planning an invasion of England to seal Europe's fate. Though the United States was still neutral, a few Americans decided they couldn't remain on the sidelines. They joined Britain's Royal Air Force - with the future of civilization hanging in the balance. The Few tells the dramatic story of these Americans who defied their own country's neutrality laws and risked their very citizenship to fight side-by-side with England's finest pilots.

The Ghost Army of World War II: How One Top-Secret Unit Deceived the Enemy with Inflatable Tanks, Sound Effects, and Other Audacious Fakery

In the summer of 1944, a handpicked group of young GIs - including such future luminaries as Bill Blass, Ellsworth Kelly, Arthur Singer, Victor Dowd, Art Kane, and Jack Masey - landed in France to conduct a secret mission. Armed with truckloads of inflatable tanks, a massive collection of sound-effects records, and more than a few tricks up their sleeves, their job was to create a traveling road show of deception on the battlefields of Europe, with the German Army as their audience.

Beyond Valor: World War II's Ranger and Airborne Veterans Reveal the Heart of Combat

Previous books have promised to describe the combat experience of the World War II GI, but there has never been a book like Patrick O'Donnell's Beyond Valor. Here is the first combat history of the war in Europe in the words of the men themselves, and perhaps the most honest and brutal account of combat possible.

History Decoded: The Ten Greatest Conspiracies of All Time

Adapted from Decoded, Meltzer's hit show on the History network, History Decoded explores many fascinating and unexplained questions. Is Fort Knox empty? Why was Hitler so intent on capturing the Roman "Spear of Destiny"? What's the government hiding in Area 51? Where did the Confederacy's $19 million in gold and silver go at the end of the Civil War? Did Lee Harvey Oswald really act alone?

Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body's Most Underrated Organ

Our gut is almost as important to us as our brain, yet we know very little about how it works. Gut: The Inside Story is an entertaining, informative tour of the digestive system from the moment we raise a tasty morsel to our lips until the moment our body surrenders the remnants to the toilet bowl. No topic is too lowly for the author's wonder and admiration, from the careful choreography of breaking wind to the precise internal communication required for a cleansing vomit.

Earth Moved: On the Remarkable Achievements of Earthworms

They destroy plant diseases. They break down toxins. They plough the earth. They transform forests. They’ve survived two mass extinctions, including the one that wiped out the dinosaur. Not bad for a creature that’s deaf, blind, and spineless. Who knew that earthworms were one of our planet’s most important caretakers? Or that Charles Darwin devoted his last years to studying their remarkable achievements?

1066: The Year That Changed Everything

With this exciting and historically rich six-lecture course, experience for yourself the drama of this dynamic year in medieval history, centered on the landmark Norman Conquest. Taking you from the shores of Scandinavia and France to the battlefields of the English countryside, these lectures will plunge you into a world of fierce Viking warriors, powerful noble families, politically charged marriages, tense succession crises, epic military invasions, and much more.

The 4 Percent Universe: Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Race to Discover the Rest of Reality

Over the past few decades, a handful of scientists have been racing to explain a disturbing aspect of our universe: only four percent of it consists of the matter that makes up you, me, our books, and every star and planet. The rest is completely unknown. Richard Panek tells the dramatic story of the quest to find this “dark” matter and an even more bizarre substance called “dark energy”. This is perhaps the greatest mystery in all of science, and solving it will bring fame, funding, and certainly a Nobel Prize.

Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders

Prosecuting attorney in the Manson trial Vincent Bugliosi held a unique insider's position in one of the most baffling and horrifying cases of the 20th century: the cold-blooded Tate-LaBianca murders carried out by Charles Manson and four of his followers. What motivated Manson in his seemingly mindless selection of victims, and what was his hold over the young women who obeyed his orders? Now available for the first time in unabridged audio, the gripping story of this famous and haunting crime is brought to life by acclaimed narrator Scott Brick.

Paper: Paging Through History

Paper is one of the simplest and most essential pieces of human technology. For the past two millennia, the ability to produce it in ever more efficient ways has supported the proliferation of literacy, media, religion, education, commerce, and art; it has formed the foundation of civilizations, promoting revolutions and restoring stability.

Into the Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon’s Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets of the Heart

Extraordinary things happen when we harness the power of both the brain and the heart. Growing up in the high desert of California, Jim Doty was poor, living with an alcoholic father and a mother chronically depressed and paralyzed by a stroke. Today he is the director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford University, of which the Dalai Lama is a founding benefactor.

The Gods Themselves

Only a few know the terrifying truth - an outcast Earth scientist, a rebellious alien inhabitant of a dying planet, a lunar-born human intuitionist who senses the imminent annihilation of the Sun... They know the truth - but who will listen? They have foreseen the cost of abundant energy - but who will believe?These few beings, human and alien, hold the key to the Earth's survival.

Why is glass see-through? What makes elastic stretchy? Why does a paper clip bend? These are the sorts of questions that Mark Miodownik is constantly asking himself. A globally renowned materials scientist, Miodownik has spent his life exploring objects as ordinary as an envelope and as unexpected as concrete cloth, uncovering the fascinating secrets that hold together our physical world.

American Pain: How a Young Felon and His Ring of Doctors Unleashed America's Deadliest Drug Epidemic

American Pain chronicles the rise and fall of this game-changing pill mill and how it helped tip the nation into its current opioid crisis. The narrative, which swings back and forth between Florida and Kentucky, is populated by a diverse cast of characters.

Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English

A survey of the quirks and quandaries of the English language, focusing on our strange and wonderful grammar. Why do we say "I am reading a catalog" instead of "I read a catalog"? Why do we say "do" at all? Is the way we speak a reflection of our cultural values? Delving into these provocative topics and more, Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue distills hundreds of years of fascinating lore into one lively history.

A Brief History of Misogyny: the World's Oldest Prejudice: Brief Histories

In this compelling, powerful book, highly respected writer and commentator Jack Holland sets out to answer a daunting question: How do you explain the oppression and brutalization of half the world's population by the other half, throughout history? The result takes the listener on an eye-opening journey through centuries, continents, and civilizations as it looks at both historical and contemporary attitudes to women.

Publisher's Summary

So much of our human body is made up of salt that we'd be dead without it. The fine balance of nature, the trade of salt as a currency of many nations and empires, the theme of a popular Shakespearean play...Salt is best selling author Mark Kurlansky's story of the only rock we eat.

From its single origin, to the other discoveries made because of it, fascinating tales of salt and the people who have been involved with it through the ages are interwoven here. Fifteen recipes are included that will meet with every taste. Mark Kurlansky has produced a kaleidoscope of history, a multi-layered masterpiece that blends economic, scientific, political, religious, and culinary records into a rich and memorable tale.

What the Critics Say

"A piquant blend of the historic, political, commercial, scientific and culinary, the book is sure to entertain as well as educate." (Publishers Weekly) "Kurlansky continues to prove himself remarkably adept at taking a most unlikely candidate and telling its tale with epic grandeur." (Los Angeles Times Book Review)

Salt (Unabridged) delivers much more than a history of salt through the centuries...it is a history of mankind and our development seen from a unique perspective. I found this to be one of the most informative histories of Man, Culture, Myth, and Technology that I have read. Extremely readable (and listenable), conversational and compelling.

This is one of those books that just opens your eyes to something you never knew. Fascinating stories about the importance of SALT. It does not stop there. Each voyage into the importance of Salt at a particular time and place is followed by a narrative of many other important events that surrounded his original story. From Gandi to Washington. Brigham Young to the Chinese. Europe and the Vikings. Historically speaking, Salt has been as important as oil is today. Mark Kurlansky does a wonderful job of telling the story and keeping the reader entertained. There are only a few minor moments when the material gets a little dry "no pun intended", but he does not get very repetitive as I thought might be the case.
He did a great job of research and I can tell from references, a lot of work in putting this book together.

A wonderfully engrossing book! At first I thought it was a joke. (Which is why I got it...I mean come on a 13-hour book on salt!) But I could not stop listening to it. Be warned that this is not a "background book? You need to kind of pay attention at all times, as allot can happen in a few sentences. I really enjoyed the background on cultures and foods.

This is my favourite audible book that I have and I have about 30. The reader was excellent, clear and easy to understand. I was shocked and delighted by the content. I learned so incredibly much about history and the drive of history based around a single necessary resource. Did you know that a major reason that the South struggled in the Civil War was a lack of salt resources? or that the Great Wall of China was built entirely using the taxes from iron and salt? I felt that the author gave just the right amount of time to each topic and that his shifts from topic to topic were strategically placed to keep the reader interested and aware of when and where the stories were from. I loved it!

If you enjoy books (and TV programs) like the "Connections" series by James Burke or are a Discovery Channel junkie, you'll enjoy this book. It is truly a cultural history of salt - possibly the most important chemical after water in human history. Highly recommended.

Although my wife didn't listen to this book, she learned to hate it... while I was listening to it and for weeks after, I bombarded her with all the fascinating trivia about salt that I picked up. This was mostly at meals, of course. The book is packed with interesting facts, but I wish the author had organized them better. Sometimes he takes a chronological approach, but then switches gears to a geographical approach, and then on to a culinary approach and then back to chronological. The narration could have been a little crisper. It's a light listen overall, but worth your time.

What more can I say about Mark Kurlansky's economic history of the world that the previous reviewers have not already said? Stop reading these reviews already and add the book to your shopping cart. You won't be sorry that you did.

The book is part cookbook, trivia, history on one topic Salt. The finding, producing, use, transporting, taxing and wars over salt. Shows the history of man's migration and civilization in a new and fascinating light. I found it very interesting about how Ghandi used the British imposed Salt Laws, and his disobedience of them to gain freedom for his country. The book goes from ancient times to modern and covers the world. Wish there had been more on Central and South America. I am a history buff so this was right down my alley, Scott Brick as usual, did a great job narrating the book.

If you want to know why the French government salted the bodies of suicide victims; why the English built a fourteen foot thick, ten foot high, thicket in India around salt works; or why salt has changed the course of history, politics, war, marriage and sex, then you must listen to "Salt." Truly one of the most fascinating books I have ever encountered. You'll never look at the little girl with the umbrella again in the same way. Also, absolutely first class reading by the narrator.

The history of Salt is fascinating no doubt and often presented in an interesting way within this book. However, audiobooks have one great disadvantage to books that are read, you can't skip sections that aren't always meant to be read. There are far too many recipes in this book that are difficult to scan through as you probably would if reading. I don't really want to hear all the details of how to make traditional German pickled cabbage and when I fast forward through these often lengthy recipes I always seem to miss things that I actually do want to hear.